Fathers Day Dinner Ideas From Salmon to Five-Spiced Pork Belly

Our Fathers Day dinner ideas for dads celebrating Father’s Day next Sunday include beef Stroganoff, braised chicken with olives and capers, salmon with colcannon, cote de boeuf, five-spice pork belly, and brined pork with creamy mash for a Father’s Day dinner dad won’t forget. Keeping things casual? How about a spread of Spanish tapas or Basque pintxos?

It’s Father’s Day this Sunday for dads in Australia, New Zealand, and some Pacific countries. So we thought we’d share some Fathers Day dinner ideas for our readers who are celebrating this weekend. If you don’t normally cook dad something special for Father’s Day dinner, why not change that and start a new family tradition this Sunday?

If not Fathers Day dinner, why not Fathers Day breakfast or brunch or Fathers Day lunch instead? As I like to say: memories last a lifetime, socks and boxers don’t. So why not invest a little time in making a memorable family meal focused around dad to make up for those years of footwear and underwear> Why do dads get such lame Father’s Day gifts anyway?

Before I share our Father’s Day dinner ideas, I have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader supported. If you’ve enjoyed our recipes, please consider supporting Grantourismo by supporting our epic Cambodian cuisine history and cookbook on Patreon; or buying a handcrafted KROK, the best mortar and pestle ever; booking a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith; or buying something on Amazon, such as these cookbooks for culinary travellers, classic cookbooks for serious cooks, or gifts for Asian food lovers and picnic lovers. Now let me tell you about our Father’s Day dinner ideas.

Fathers Day Dinner Ideas – Braised Chicken, Crispy Salmon, Spiced Pork Belly and More

Our Fathers Day dinner ideas include everything from braised chicken with olives and capers to a crispy-skinned salmon fillet and brined pork with creamy mashed potatoes.

Spanish Tapas Recipes for a Tapas Bar Feast at Home

One of my best Fathers Day dinner ideas for a relaxed meal or a casual gathering is a Spanish tapas bar feast at home. I know it’s not the same as grazing on Spanish tapas as you bar-hop in Spain, but it’s the next best thing.

Our best Spanish tapas recipes include recipes for some of the most popular Spanish tapas bar snacks: the Spanish meatballs called albondigas (one of our best meatballs recipes), crispy chorizo and potato croquettes or croquetas de patata y chorizo, the classic garlic shrimp or gambas al ajillo, Spanish chorizo in red wine or chorizo al vino tinto, and an easy but impressive-looking grilled calamari or calamari a la plancha.

If you’re not already a lover of Spanish tapas, a tapa is a small snack plate available at tapas bars in Spain and abroad – tapas is plural – where a tapas bar crawl is the best means by which to sample these delicious morsels. While it might not be the same as a leisurely bar-hop from one boisterous tapas spot to another, a sit-down tapas feast at home is lots of fun.

Best Spanish Tapas Recipes for a Tapas Bar Feast at Home (Not the Same, but Still Lots of Fun)

Braised Chicken with Olives and Capers Recipe for Juicy Mediterranean Style Chicken

This braised chicken with olives and capers recipe makes incredibly succulent chicken legs in a Mediterranean style with a couple of surprising Asian ingredients. It’s one of our best Fathers Day dinner ideas for an impressive sit-down meal.

Adapted from a recipe by Australian chef Martin Benn, it’s one of our best chicken recipes, a foolproof set-and-forget chicken dish that no matter how long you leave it or reheat it the chicken remains juicy.

We love to serve it with a chicken jus and crunchy Hassleback potatoes or creamy potato mash and this radish cucumber salad with feta, rucola and fresh herbs.

Braised Chicken with Olives and Capers Recipe for Juicy Mediterranean Style Chicken

Crispy Salmon Fillet with Colcannon Recipe

If you’re looking for formal Fathers Day dinner ideas and are considering setting the table and opening some good bottles of wine, then consider this crispy skinned salmon fillet with colcannon recipe, which has been a favourite of our’s since we first tasted the dish at restaurant Banc in Sydney back in the late Nineties.

The crispy skinned salmon fillet was cooked to perfection, the colcannon (an Irish mash potato) was creamy and rich, and while the red wine sauce seemed an unusual choice, its acidity worked well with a mouthful of the other ingredients. That salmon dish was the reason that we walked out of the restaurant after our first meal there clutching the cookbook, Banc.

One of the things that Terence loves about this recipe is that you can prep everything beforehand and disappear into the kitchen for 10 minutes to finish it if you’ve done your mis en place properly. Reheat the mash and add some butter to the sauce while you cook the salmon. So simple, which means you get to spend more time with dad. Salmon lover? More salmon recipes here.

Salmon Fillet with Colcannon Recipe and How to Get a Perfect Crispy Salmon Skin

Authentic Beef Stroganoff Recipe for a Retro Classic from a Palace Kitchen

One of my best Fathers Day dinner ideas for you is to cook up a feast fit for a king – or count, Count Stroganov. This authentic Russian beef Stroganoff recipe makes the deliciously rich and creamy braised beef and mushroom dish cooked centuries ago in the grand kitchen of St Petersburg’s glorious pink Stroganov Palace.

Better known as a retro classic of the Seventies, beef Stroganoff is rich in history and incredibly comforting. It’s an aristocratic Russian dish with peasant roots – there were mushrooms and beef stews centuries before this Russian beef Stroganoff recipe was said to have been invented and refined in the Stroganov dynasty’s St Petersburg palace kitchen by a French chef.

Beef Stroganoff would go on to travel the world with Russian émigrés and World War II refugees like my grandparents, becoming popular everywhere from Asia to Australia and the Americas. Beef Stroganoff’s first stop was China and then Hong Kong, where it can still be found in the old Russian restaurants, which partly explains why I add a little fish sauce to my Stroganoff recipes.

This beef Stroganoff is fantastic with shoestring fries (the dish’s traditional side) or creamy mashed potatoes. A Russian garden salad is essential. If you want to make a real feast out of it, start with bowls of borscht, consider stuffed cabbage rolls, perhaps a beetroot potato salad, and even chicken kotleti. That was a typical Sunday lunch spread at my Russian-Ukrainian grandparents’ house!

Authentic Russian Beef Stroganoff Recipe for a Retro Classic from a Saint Petersburg Palace Kitchen

Five-Spice Crispy Pork Belly Recipe

This melt-in-the-mouth five-spice crispy pork belly is another fantastic Fathers Day dinner idea. This is one of our favourite ways to cook pork belly. Terence spent a couple of years refining this dish and gets consistently fantastic results from this recipe.

This five-spice crispy pork belly recipe is very different to his char siu pork recipe which is also sublime but requires a lot more time before you get to taste it. This five-spice pork belly dish is a bit more refined and is perfect for a Fathers Day dinner main course.

I highly recommend serving these perfect creamy mashed potatoes on the side. This recipe really makes a special meal that dad won’t forget quickly.

Five-Spice Crispy Pork Belly Recipe – A Refined Rendition for a Dinner Party

Pan-Roasted Brined and Marinated Pork Chops Recipe

Of all these Fathers Day dinner ideas, this is perhaps my favourite (okay, along with the salmon above). Terence’s pan-roasted, brined and marinated pork chops recipe makes some of the juiciest pork chops you’ll ever taste. Terence’s brined pork chops recipe is a recipe that defies the notion that pork chops are generally dry and bland.

Using a simple brining technique combined with a spicy marinade, the bland pork chop is transformed into a succulent and zesty main course. Brining the pork keeps the meat moist and marinating adds flavour.

If you’re not familiar with brining, a basic brine is a salt-water solution, but Terence always adds an equal amount of sugar to match the salt. That additional sweetness works beautifully for the pork.

The marinade gives the meat extra flavour, particularly when using Asian spices, which are more bold than European flavours. Our perfect mashed potatoes also work with this.

Pan-Roasted Brined and Marinated Pork Chops Recipe – How to Make the Juiciest Pork Chops Ever

Basque Pintxo Recipes for a Casual Buffet-Style Spread

A buffet-style spread of Basque pintxos is another one of my best Fathers Day dinner ideas for a casual gathering, especially if you prefer not to sit around a dining table. Easy to make, these Basque snacks are perfect for relaxed entertaining.

Our Basque pintxos recipe makes finger food called ‘pintxos’ in Basque or ‘pinchos’ in Spanish. Pronounced ‘peen-chos’ and offered in bars in Spain’s Basque Country, most famously in the city of San Sebastian, pintxos are often likened to Spanish tapas but are more like Italian crostini.

This recipe will make you the classic Basque snacks of tasty toppings on toasted baguette slices, typically served buffet-style on bar counter-tops. Effortless to prepare, as affordable or as expensive as you like, and easy to eat, pintxos are perfect for laidback gatherings and fuss-free meals.

Basque Pintxo Recipes for Basque Style Tapas for Easy Entertaining

Aromatic Cote de Boeuf Recipe Courtesy of Chef Pierre Gagnaire

Of all our Fathers Day dinner ideas, this cote de boeuf recipe – or more correctly, côte de bœuf – courtesy of superstar French Chef Pierre Gagnaire is perhaps the most special and was one of our most memorable souvenirs of our stay in Paris in the spring of 2010, a quarter of the way through our 12 month global grand tour that launched Grantourismo.

The year before that trip we had the privilege of being flies on the wall for a night in Pierre Gagnaire’s Dubai restaurant kitchen when the chef made one of his frequent visits. That night, as head chef Olivier Biles fired orders of côte de bœuf so colossal, so fragrant, and so delicious, we had trouble focussing on the story we were working on.

Olivier would send out the côte de bœuf in a cast iron Dutch Oven to show customers the beautiful piece of meat they’d be getting before it hit the oven to complete the cooking. The huge chunks of beef had been seared and were surrounded by fragrant sprigs of thyme burning like incense. The fantastic aromas that wafted from the pot turned almost every head in the restaurant.

“Five minutes a side on the grill, ten minutes in the oven, and ten minutes rest,” the chef told us, when we asked for this recipe. Simple as that. And yet we guarantee it will become one of the most memorable meals you’ll ever make your dad. I wish we could have had the chance to make it for my dad.